


It's Only a Paper Moon

by gloriouswhisperstyphoon



Series: stars fading but I linger on [1]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - World War II, Angst, Bletchley Park, F/M, The Author's Musings on the Price of War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-26 20:52:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15671076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloriouswhisperstyphoon/pseuds/gloriouswhisperstyphoon
Summary: Everyone has secrets, even happy memories can bring pain, and the war must still be fought.Or: the effects of war on the Home Front, as seen through the eyes of the women of Bletchley Park over a single day during the War.





	It's Only a Paper Moon

**Say it’s only a paper moon**

 

Leia Organa rubbed her temples as the clacking of the typewriters on the midnight shift reached a fever pitch, the tiny empty clicking of nails on keys. She blinked again, trying to stop the letters swimming before her eyes.

She let out a deep sigh, lifting her cup of coffee to her lips, the bitter liquid already long gone cold. Leia could feel her face move into an involuntary moue of distaste as she focused her attentions on the code in front of her. 

Next to her, Winter was tapping her pencil and resting her head on the desk. 

The tower of codes to be broken sat in front of them, a continued reminder of what was at stake here. 

She looked sallow, a far cry from the debutantes they had both been before the war. 

A year at Bletchley Park took a lot out of a woman. Six days a week, shift after shift, receiving codes, breaking them, passing them onto god knows where before sleeping in freezing billets. And lord knew, this would only end when the war did. 

Winter reached across her to grab another sheet of paper, her face deep in concentration. 

A cloud of dust rose from the stack and Jyn Erso broke into a coughing fit on the either side of the desk. 

Leia gave her a little smile, which was promptly waved off. She tried not to take it too personally, the woman had been awfully distracted lately. To be fair, they all were.

Her eyes involuntarily flicked to the office at the end of the corridor, where she knew that her mother was burning the midnight oil, undoubtedly staring at the codes that had already been broken, deciding which ones would be important enough to run up to the next level and which ones could be ignored until the most pressing concern had been taken care of.

She took another sip of her awful coffee and squinted at the words again. There was something about this code, something at the very tip of her tongue - 

Winter suddenly started poking her in the arm and Leia bit back a curse. A lock of Winter’s hair got in Leia’s face as she leaned over at the code that she had been copying out. 

“Leia, I think something’s about to happen in Russia - this tank formation was seen a few weeks ago in Poland and now it’s being ordered to cross the border into Russia.”

Leia chewed her lip before Jyn, the brilliant linguist who could probably crack codes without need of the bombes in the next hut, suddenly spoke. “Can I see the code?”

Her eyes flicked over the code briefly.

“Run it up,” she said in a clipped voice, before turning back to her own codes. 

Padme briefly raised her eyes when Leia brought the decrypted note to her, knocking softly on the door as she pushed it open. 

“Hey - we’ve got some unusual repetition in the code. Something about an action in Russia?”

Something flickered over Padme’s face, before she leaned back in her seat and sighed. Leia stood between the door and her mother’s desk, confused about whether she should sit down so that her mother could have a quiet moment with her, but Padme waved a hand and the moment was lost. 

Winter patted her shoulder before turning back to her own codes. “Was it anything to worry about?”

Leia shrugged. “Padme ran it up the line. What’s next?”

Winter passed her the next piece of paper from the stack and Leia took a deep breath before diving back into the world of numbers and codes and wars and blood and soldiers on the front.

The war waited for no man, or rather, no woman. 

The clicking of the keys echoed long into the night.

  
  
  


\---

  
  
  


**Sailing over a cardboard sea**

 

Shara Bey stretched her arms over her head, listening to the satisfying crack in her back as she arched it, feeling the still novel sensation of the baby kicking against her stomach. She surreptitiously brushed her hand against the still-growing bump, pushing all her concerns to the background. 

The war came first for all of them. Any inattention could cost lives. 

Her roommate Jyn Erso flicked a look at her from where she had just gotten up to get them both mugs of lukewarm coffee. “You alright?”

Shara shrugged, biting her tongue. “We’ll talk later?”

Jyn gave her a little smile, slightly strained as they turned back to their work, her twitching finger on the table betraying her nervousness and irritation at being stuck with her code. 

She straightened her back, adjusting the fit of her skirt as best she could. She and Jyn would probably be up again trying to loosen the seams on her clothes again. There were a lot of things that she wanted in life, but part of that list would be a skirt that fit properly that had not been darned a thousand times over. 

She couldn’t wait for this war to be over.

From next to her, Jyn took a deep breath in, rubbing her temples. “I’m off for my tea break, want to join?”

The armchairs in the tea room were not particularly comfortable, but they at least offered some comfortable back support and Shara let out a deep sigh of relief as she sank into its relative comfort. 

Oh, what she wouldn’t give for the brilliant skies above her, the wind whipping through her hair and Kes at her side again.

She started twisting the silver band on her finger, a nervous habit she had never managed to shake. 

Where was Kes now, she wondered. Was he one of the young men whose lives were at stake in the piles of paper that lay still encrypted on her desk outside?

The ring was cool against her fingers.

Jyn’s eyes quickly flicked down to the ring and Shara gave her a small smile. “Tell me about your young man.”

There was something that crossed Jyn’s face and her eyes looked sad for a moment before she pasted a mask back over it and took a sip of her tea. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Does he treat you well?”

An involuntary smile broke out over Jyn’s face and she tucked her chin into the collar of her threadbare cardigan. 

“Then that’s all I wanted to know.”

They sat there in silence for a long time, sipping their terrible coffee together as Shara gently stroked her growing bump through the layers of clothing. “Do you ever wonder what life would have been like if the war hadn’t started?”

Jyn’s eyes lifted from her coffee. “No,” she said in a curt voice. 

Shara cocked her head sideways. “You don’t wonder if you would have met your soldier or met anyone -”

She got a shrug in reply. “What happens is what happens. You can only really control how you react to it,” Jyn said, a slight foreign lilt to her words. 

She leaned back in her seat, still absent-mindedly rubbing her stomach, heedless of who was in the room with them. “When the war is over, I want to buy a house in the countryside, far away from all the noise - you know - and I want to buy a plane and I’m going to teach my kid how to fly.”

Jyn raised her mug in a sardonic toast. “Here’s to the end of the war.”

  
  
  
  


\----

  
  
  
  


**But it wouldn’t be make-believe**

 

Jyn Erso threw open the window and tried to suck in a breath of fresh air, while she waited for her turn in front of the mirror and her chance to take down the heavy pins that had been holding her hair in place all day. 

She pasted a quick smile on her face as Shara turned back to her. 

Her hand twitched and she resisted the urge to touch the necklace that was not there, but was God knows where around Cassian’s neck. 

She breathed a sigh of relief when Shara ushered her in front of the mirror and started pulling out the pins, attacking the tight curls with a brush. 

Her eyes flicked involuntarily over to the newspaper and the almost familiar names and cities in the headline.

She tried not to think too hard about the city she had grown up in, the harbour and the palaces of Copenhagen and what it must look like now -

Her fingers traced the familiar letters and her eyes drifted over to her mother’s letters. 

All the stress and all the fear of the Blitz and her concern for her daughter, supposedly working as a machinist in a factory. 

If only she knew.

She took a deep breath, trying not to shake her head as Shara tugged and pulled at her hair to try and make it lay in the neat curls that they’d seen at the pictures. “What’s the point in all this, Shara? We still have to go to work before this.”

Shara shrugged. “Live a little, Jyn. Who knows? Maybe your young man will be there. Do you know where he is right now?”

Jyn touched the spot where her necklace should have been. Where was Cassian? 

She missed him, in all his bravery and his beauty and his kindness and the darkness in his eyes that she had first seen at the dance she had been dragged to, his gentle kiss that night below the dying flickers of the streetlight. 

She went through her day in a daze, her eyes glazing over the codes she was supposedly cracking, her mind flicking between the languages she needed for decryption and her constant fear and worry for Cassian. 

A hand suddenly dropped down on her shoulder and Jyn startled so hard she almost jumped out of her seat. 

“Ma’am?” she said, almost awestruck by the presence of Padme Amidala. 

Padme rolled her eyes and gestured to her office. 

Jyn stood awkwardly in front of the desk as Padme closed the door, her hands tightly clutched behind her back.

What could they have known?

She was Danish, not German, she didn’t know anything -

A quirk of an eyebrow and a nod at one of the chairs. 

Jyn sat gingerly at the edge of it, almost as though she were ready to run at a moment’s notice. 

Padme let out a brilliant little laugh. “You’re not in any trouble, Jyn. Don’t worry.”

Jyn forced herself to sit still. “So what did you need me here for, ma’am?”

A tap of a finger on a notepad. “Excellent decryption the other day, Erso. That was really good work.”

A slow nod in reply. 

Padme suddenly reached down beneath her desk and Jyn tensed for a moment. 

What could she be getting out?

What the hell?

Jyn opened the box that Padme passed her and raised an eyebrow. 

“I know you’re a smart girl, Jyn. But I can tell you, and I’m sure that Shara can as well, that being pregnant during a war is no fun at all. Be smart and use these, yes?”

Jyn had no response, so she simply tucked the box into one of her pockets and went back outside to the codes and to the war. 

  
  
  
  


\---  
  
  


 

 

There was always an air of excitement when Bletchley held dances for its employees and Jyn quickly scanned through the faces of all the American soldiers, looking for a sign of high cheekbones and dark shadowed eyes. 

Shara stood next to her at the refreshments table, holding a glass of lemonade with a face of distaste. 

“You know that’s just an old wives’ tale, right, Shara?”

She got a shrug in return. “Whatever it takes to stay safe.”

An American air force man suddenly brushed up against Shara, his chin cocked and his hand outstretched as though he already knew her answer. 

Shara simply turned back to Jyn and raised an eyebrow. “What do you think, Jyn? Should I put the man out of his misery?”

Jyn rolled her eyes and gently shoved her in the small of her back and watched her being whirled into the centre of the throng.

She could see Winter’s shock of white hair and Leia’s dancing skills on the dance floor, before - 

“Care for a dance?”

Jyn grinned up at Cassian’s face, stealing a quick kiss at the corner of his mouth before he took her in his arms and twirled her onto the dance floor.

“Welcome home,” she could almost hear him whispering into her ear. 

  
  
  
  


\---

  
  
  
  
  
  


**If you believed in me**

 

Padme Amidala sank into her chair, running a hand over her face.

She always knew that this day would come, and husband and wife would be trapped in their roles on opposite sides of a war that they had never wanted.

She took another deep breath, looking at the encrypted notebook on the table, a rust-red stain still on the sides and the pages still damp with the blood of a man who was probably in custody, being beaten bloody for his secrets. 

She touched her fingers gently to the pages.

Anakin, her gentle love from all those years ago, standing with the Germans as they invaded Russia. 

She had struggled to believe it for so long - in her mind, he was still the man who had kissed her at the edge of the lake and that she had tried to explain the nature of politics to but now - now, he was a monster and the man that she had once known, with all his conviction and his determination to do good by the world, was completely gone. She could almost see it now, the screams and the terror of the innocents as they ran from his armies. 

What did he look like, now? Did the years show as heavily on his face as they did on hers? 

Was it true that one’s evil would show on his face?

Did he look like a monster beyond all imagining?

She shook her head, taking a deep breath and resting her hands flat on the table. 

From outside, she could almost imagine hearing the soft echoes of music floating over from the music hall and the laughter of the other girls. 

Oh, what she wouldn’t have given to be young without a care in the world again.

There was a soft knock on the door and she lifted her eyes to see Mon Mothma standing there, holding a bottle aloft. 

She rolled her eyes and ushered her in. 

“Would you like coffee or tea?”

Mon arched a perfectly shaped brow. “May I ask how you have either?”

Padme gave a short laugh. “Just pick one, Mon.”

Her only reply was to hold up the bottle of whiskey. Padme laughed again, bustling around for two cups of reasonable coffee, rare enough with all the rationing going on, before pouring in a healthy tot of alcohol into both. 

They sat there in silence, the brief levity of the moment dissipating like the mist outside the huts as they suddenly remembered where they were and why they were there. 

She took a deep sip of the coffee, the bitterness and the sharp aftertaste of the whiskey loosening her tongue. “Do you ever wonder what your life would have been like if the war hadn’t happened?”

Another moment of silence before Mon finally replied. “Which war?”

Padme let out a sardonic little laugh. “We really did make quite a mess of things, didn’t we?”

Mon leaned forward and took her hand gently. “We’re going to make things right, Padme. The girls out there. They’re all doing their bit to help.”

She raised her mug, only to find that it was empty, before switching over to the whiskey, taking a swig directly from the bottle. “Don’t you find it funny that all the children that were conceived out of love just as the first war ended have only come of age now, to fight this new war?”

The grip on her hand tightened and the chair scraped as Mon moved herself closer. “You can’t keep blaming yourself for what happened.”

She took a shaky breath in, feeling something damp on her cheeks. She sucked in another breath, pulling her back straight.

She could never show weakness. 

Not now.

Not ever. 

She wiped the tears off her face and pursed her lips, willing herself to stay strong. Her hand tightened on Mon’s, a vice-like grip. “The world has changed and none of us can go back, Mon. Sometimes I think,” her voice broke for a moment. “Sometimes I think that the best thing is to burn it all down and start it all over again.”

Mon let go of her coffee and tightened her grip on her hand. “Padme, you can’t keep blaming yourself.”

Her other hand dug its nails into the wood of the table before she pressed it against her mouth. There were girls out there with a job to do and Padme had a face to put on for them. She had to be strong for them.

Keep calm and carry on, as all the posters out there said.

She pushed her chair back and shakily went to the window, her hands digging into the wood of the window sill.

It was raining outside, the world disguised with a veil of water and fog.

Such a beautiful sight for a world of horrors. 

A peal of laughter rang out from below the window and Padme looked down and involuntarily smiled. 

Jyn Erso, laughing.

She’d never thought something like that would be possible.

An image flashed through her mind’s eye and she swore she saw the past rising up from the ground to play out in front of her again.

A dark haired woman running hand-in-hand with a man through the rain as they tried in vain to keep themselves dry. 

She touched her fingertips to the window, watching the condensation against them. 

There were a set of quiet footsteps next to her and Mon stood next to her, looking out through the windows at the laughing couple.

There was silence for a moment as they watched the lovers disappear into the rain.

This was what they were fighting for. Something more than just King and country, more than just democracy perishing at the hands of jackbooted thugs. They were fighting and fighting for that single moment of those lovers in the rain, their laughter ringing on through the distance and their chance to have their own happy ending. 

Padme pulled herself straight and walked back through the doors.

She had a job to do.

**Author's Note:**

> Copious thanks to imsfire for being a wonderful friend who whipped this monstrosity into shape and helped me with all the nonsense I was trying to write.


End file.
